Working Stiff:Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1)(10)

"No way!"

He raised an eyebrow at her and hesitated before he carefully pronounced, "Way."

"But you laugh when people sing that ‘Englishman in L.A.' silliness at you!"

"It's meant in fun." He leaned back again.                       
       
           



       

"So what are you?"

"I am Dutch."

"How did I not know this about you after three years of working with you?"

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "I don't advertise it."

"Dutch. That's, like, Holland, right?"

"The Kingdom of the Netherlands is composed of far more than Holland and includes several Caribbean islands, but yes."

"The Netherlands. Sounds like something out of Minecraft. So where were you born?"

"Amsterdam."

"Oh," she chortled. "Amsterdam. You hear all those things about how decadent Amsterdam is. That explains a lot."

"It's not that bad. Less crime than Los Angeles. Less decadent than Denver or Las Vegas, probably."

"So you speak Dutch?"

"Yes." He blinked at her, obviously amused at her naiveté.

Fine. Whatever. "Is it called Dutch or Netherlanderese or what?"

His dark green eyes laughed at her. "Dutch."

"So what does ‘Friso' mean in Dutch?"

"John William Friso was the first monarch of the Netherlands. Most current European kings and queens are descended from him."

"So you're named after a king? My dad says that I was named after a literary character, Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac."

"Ah," Cash said. "The one where the ugly man falls in love with a  beautiful woman and writes letters to her for another man, one who is  handsome but stupid, and he charms her with his wit and words into the  other man's bed, and then he dies. So romantic."

"It's too bad that the Netherlands doesn't have a king anymore. There  should be more kings." Rox stared at the wavy patterns the sun screens  shadowed on the walls. Hey, it was better than working.

"We have a king." Cash shrugged. "The Kingdom of the Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy."

Rox looked up at him, very interested. "So you have a king? A real king?"

"Well, that's open for debate, whether or not he's a real king."

"You aren't one of those anti-monarchists like they have in England, are  you? I like royalty. They're like celebrities who didn't have to do  anything stupid or crass to get famous, like ‘accidentally' make a sex  tape."

Cash laughed. "Oh, there are always sex tapes."

"No way."

"Way. You seem to be channeling your inner surfer today."

"Tell me about the king," Rox begged, her eyes feeling too wide on her face.

"The King and the Queen-"

Fluster rose in Rox's head. "Oh my God, you have both. That's so cool."

He tilted his head, looking at her, and the sunlight grazed the golden  highlights in his hair and glistened off his short beard. "I didn't  realize you were so much of a royal watcher."

Rox smoothed down her black slacks. "Oh, yeah. I stayed up all night to watch Wills and Kate get married."

He blinked those deep green eyes of his. "I never would have guessed."

"Oh, yes. I'm a royal geek."

"Well, that I would have said about you, but I didn't realize you followed the noble and royal families of Europe."

"Dork. Tell me about the Queen."

"The King is kept busy with state functions, garden parties, recognizing  accomplishments, that sort of thing. The Queen is active in negotiating  trade deals. Other heads of state seem to be amused by negotiating with  a queen, and they sign rather favorable deals with us. It's like they  want to please her, and they don't realize that what they are signing is  binding. She's a shark in the boardroom."

"You don't think of royalty doing business stuff like that," Rox said.  "You think of them riding in the backs of convertibles and waving like  this." She pursed her lips, held her fingers together, and waved by  swiveling her wrist.

"They do the waving thing, too."

She leaned in, demanding, "Do they have children? Are there princes and  princesses? Who's next in line for the throne? That's how you say it,  right?"

"So many questions. The King and Queen have four children. The oldest, who is the heir, is Crown Princess Anastasia," he said.

"So they didn't have any boys?"

"There are two sons. One of them was a terrible monster, cursed to be  horrifically ugly. He was hidden most of his childhood in a far-away  castle, and no one speaks of him. His curse can only be broken by true  love."

"I declare, you are teasing me now. I know the story of ‘Beauty and the  Beast.' You cannot fool me, Cash Amsberg. Tell me about why the princess  will get the throne if there are boys."                       
       
           



       

Cash laughed out loud. "The Kingdom is inherited through absolute  primogeniture, so oldest-first, regardless of gender, a practice that I  find brilliant."

"Really, I would have thought you wouldn't."

"Why?" His wary tone should have warned her.

"Because you're a guy."

"And that's supposed to mean-"

"Aren't you rootin' for your own team?"

He stared at the ceiling before answering. "The Netherlands had a  succession of queens for over a century. We haven't had a king inherit  the throne since the eighteen-hundreds before the current one. Queen  Wilhelmina was one of the great leaders of the Dutch resistance during  World War II, managing to oust Nazi sympathizers from the government  even though she was in exile in England, and she gave a nightly rallying  broadcast over Radio Oranje. I think Anastasia will be a brilliant  queen someday. Britain has the same succession rules, now. They changed  them just a few years ago."

"Oh, a princess who will be queen. That's so-" Rox trailed off, trying to find a good word, her hands clasped under her grin.

"Romantic?"

"Feminist," she decided. "I love that she is going to rule the kingdom. Queendom?"

"Kingdom. They don't change the money and the stationery every few decades."

"Is she beautiful?" Rox asked, thoroughly aware that she was going all  girlie-girl over the princess, but Valerie's contracts were so damn  boring.

"Oh, yes," Cash said, his tone sing-song because he was obviously humoring her. "She is as beautiful as she is evil."

"Oh, no!" Rox sat up straight. "She can't be evil. She's a princess."

"They call her Princess Anastasia the Nefarious."

Rox curled her upper lip at him, doing her best to snarl. "That is  totally not how the fairy tale goes. The princess is as beautiful as she  is good."

"When Princess Anastasia comes to power, she'll probably overthrow the Dutch elected government and invade France."

Rox shrugged. "Everyone invades France first. It's like the center square in tic-tac-toe."

"The one that everyone thinks they should take but is actually a losing strategy?"

"You know it."

"And then she'll conquer the world," Cash said, his voice turning low and ominous and his green eyes laughing.

"It would be kind of cool to be ruled by a queen who conquered the world," Rox mused.

Still in the ominous voice, Cash intoned, "As long as you understand  that she has a raging temper, and she will summarily execute anyone who  annoys her."

"Nobody's perfect."

"Seriously?" Cash's dark green eyes widened.

"And still, a beautiful, young, evil princess-"

"She's thirty-three now."

"-looking for love while she conquers the world-"

"She's been married for nearly ten years and has four children."

"Dude, y'all are harshing my mellow!"

"You're so funny when you speak surfer with that Southern accent."  Cash's voice and eyebrows rose, and he made fun of her accent. "Y'all  are hahshing mah melluh."

"Oh my God. The British accent trying to do the Southern drawl doing a  surfer dude is going to make my head explode. Get back to work, slacker.  We've got a thousand of Valerie's contracts to look over."

He stretched, his leather shoes pointing up from where he had rested them on the coffee table. "Let's continue this at home."

Let's continue this at home.

Rox felt his voice resonate all through her bones like a bell that was  tolling for her. Maybe accepting his invitation had been a mistake, even  if the alternative was sleeping in her car.

"We can pick up some Italian or Thai on the way and eat on my far more  comfortable couches while we work for a bit." Cash smiled that brilliant  smile, leaned forward, and held out his hand to her. "Come on. Let's  get out of here."